# BlizzCon - Event: Convention - Date: 2005 – present - Houses: Blizzard Entertainment - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/blizzcon/ > Blizzard Entertainment's own convention in Anaheim, where tens of thousands of fans in orc armor and night-elf ears gather to hear the next expansion announced, cheer esports finals and, occasionally, boo. **Why it matters:** BlizzCon turned a single game company's fandom into a festival on the scale of a hobby convention, made expansion announcements into live spectacle, and became a barometer of the relationship between Blizzard and its players. ## Quick answers **What is BlizzCon?** Blizzard Entertainment's own convention in Anaheim, where tens of thousands of fans in orc armor and night-elf ears gather to hear the next expansion announced, cheer esports finals and, occasionally, boo. **When did BlizzCon begin?** 2005 to the present. **Why does BlizzCon matter?** BlizzCon turned a single game company's fandom into a festival on the scale of a hobby convention, made expansion announcements into live spectacle, and became a barometer of the relationship between Blizzard and its players. ## What happened In 2005 [Blizzard Entertainment](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/blizzard-entertainment/) was riding the fastest launch in the history of the [MMORPGs](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/mmorpg/). *[World of Warcraft](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/world-of-warcraft/)* had opened in North America the previous November and was on its way to millions of subscribers, joining a catalog that already included the *Warcraft* strategy games, *StarCraft*, *[Diablo](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/diablo/)*, and *[Diablo II](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/diablo-ii/)*. That October, the company held its own fan convention for the first time, at the Anaheim Convention Center, a short drive from its headquarters in Irvine, California. Tickets cost $120. Attendees could play the Blood Elves, one of two new races for the coming *Burning Crusade* expansion, and a demo of the ill-fated *StarCraft: Ghost*; the closing concert featured The Offspring and the in-house parody metal band Level 60 Elite Tauren Chieftain. The format stuck. Every in-person BlizzCon has been held in Anaheim, usually over two days in the autumn, and each combines an opening-ceremony keynote of announcements, hands-on demos of unreleased games, developer panels and question-and-answer sessions, a costume contest, esports finals, and a closing concert. *Wrath of the Lich King* was announced in 2007, *Cataclysm* in 2009, and the show became the place where *Diablo III*, *StarCraft II*, *Overwatch*, and *World of Warcraft Classic* were revealed or demonstrated. From 2008 fans at home could watch on pay-per-view, and later through the "Virtual Ticket" livestream; the 2015 broadcast was reported to have been watched by more than 10 million people. Closing acts have included Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, and "Weird Al" Yankovic. Not every reveal landed. At BlizzCon 2018, the announcement of *Diablo Immortal*, a mobile game, before an audience of PC players hoping for a new mainline *Diablo* was met with booing and a flood of online anger, crystallized when a developer answered a skeptical question with the now-infamous "Do you guys not have phones?" The next year, the show opened with Blizzard's president apologizing for the company's handling of the Hong Kong protest controversy involving a *Hearthstone* player. ## Why it mattered Hobby conventions such as [Gen Con](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/gen-con/) and [Origins Game Fair](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/origins-game-fair/) had long gathered many publishers under one roof, and fan conventions such as [Dragon Con](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/dragon-con/) celebrated fantasy and science fiction broadly. BlizzCon was something newer: a convention devoted to a single game company, its fictional worlds, and its players. It proved that an MMORPG community was large and loyal enough to fill a convention center, and it gave that community rituals: the costume parade of orcs, night elves, and Diablo's demons; the collective roar when a new expansion's cinematic ended; the in-game pets and mounts tucked into the goody bags. It also became a stage on which Blizzard played out its relationship with players. Announcements that delighted, like the reveal of *World of Warcraft Classic* after years of fan requests, and those that angered, like *Diablo Immortal*, were broadcast live to millions. The community folklore of *World of Warcraft*, from [Leeroy Jenkins](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/leeroy-jenkins/) to the [Corrupted Blood plague](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/corrupted-blood-incident/), found its official home there. ## Legacy BlizzCon's rhythm has been uneven. The show was skipped in 2006 and 2012, when Blizzard said it had too many games in development to have much new to show; it was cancelled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and replaced by an online BlizzConline in February 2021; and the planned 2022 edition was cancelled in October 2021, amid a California state discrimination lawsuit against parent company Activision Blizzard. It returned in November 2023, when tickets failed to sell out for the first time, then was cancelled again in 2024 and 2025 before returning to Anaheim on September 12–13, 2026. The model it helped popularize, the publisher-run showcase with a livestreamed keynote and a fan festival built around one company's worlds, has since become common across the industry. For this museum, BlizzCon marks the moment the fantasy MMO became a culture with its own pilgrimage. ## Facts - The first BlizzCon was held in October 2005 at the Anaheim Convention Center, with tickets priced at $120. - Attendees at the first show could try the Blood Elves, a new playable race for the Burning Crusade expansion. - Wrath of the Lich King was announced at BlizzCon 2007, and Cataclysm at BlizzCon 2009. - The 2018 reveal of the mobile game Diablo Immortal was met with open hostility from the crowd and online. - BlizzCon was not held in 2006, 2012, 2020, 2022, 2024 or 2025; an online BlizzConline ran in February 2021 instead. - In 2023, for the first time, BlizzCon tickets failed to sell out. - BlizzCon returned to Anaheim on September 12–13, 2026. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlizzCon) - [Official site](https://blizzcon.com) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.